


love the way love finds you

by WillozSummers (SammieRie)



Series: Polyamuary [2]
Category: Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World
Genre: Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Polyamuary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 09:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17619659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SammieRie/pseuds/WillozSummers
Summary: Shawn and Katy have a talk before they can get serious.





	love the way love finds you

**Author's Note:**

> let's just pretend it's still January bc I finished this yesterday but took awhile to post, and I'd like to start the year off strong with 2 fics in the first month.
> 
> anyway, this is ~quasi canon-compliant with gmw. I adore Katy Hart and have a couple other big stories I want to write for her (and Shawn). hit is just me combining my bmw polyship with gmw canon.

Shawn wrings his hands together in his lap, trying to put together the right words to have this conversation. Katy sits on the couch beside him, trying to quell the rising concern at his body language. “Katy, I really like you. But before this can go any further, we need to talk.”

“Okay…” Katy tries not to let the immediate heartbreak and defensiveness show on her face. Conversations that start like this have historically not gone well for her, and if he bails, Maya will be crushed. She will be too, but if she let him get close to Maya and he hurts her, she will destroy him.

Shawn smiles back at her, trying to put her at ease. He leans forward, grabs her hand and holds it in his lap. He’s trying to tell her this is not him bolting, that this conversation has nothing to do with leaving. That’s not a conversation he wants to have with her, though he thinks that might be easier than this. He opens his mouth to start again: “Cory and Topanga and I, we’re...involved.”

“Involved in what?” Katy asks, laughing nervousing. It’s too vague a sentence, and she’s trying to stop her mind running wild with worst case scenarios.

Shawn takes a deep breath. “Involved...romantically.” His hands still in his lap and his shoulders tighten, like he’s bracing for impact.

“ _Sexually??”_ Katy asks, incredulous, and Shawn nods. She tries to wrap her head around that. She’s had sex with _Shawn_ , and _he’s_ had sex with _Cory and Topanga._ To wrap her head around the fact that _he’s_ had _sex_ with _Cory_...and Topanga. But _Cory._ She hadn’t considered that Shawn could be into guys. Or that Cory could. That wasn’t the part of this she had an issue with, but it was the first part her brain could try to process.

She pulls her hand back, and he lets her. He’s worried this could explode on him, be the end. He really likes her, more than he ever intended to. They’ve been seeing each other casually for a few months now, and maybe he should have brought this up sooner, but he’s never done this before. His job made it easy for him to go on a few dates and then leave to a new city, a new country. Katy was the first person who made him want to stay. He hasn’t committed to anyone since Angela, outside of the safety of Cory and Topanga. He hasn’t given anyone the power to hurt him that Katy has now. If this goes wrong, he could lose Maya too. He’s not prepared for that. He’s not prepared to end up hurting that little girl.

After a minute of processing, the first thing Katy manages to say is, “But they’re _married_.”

“They are,” Shawn says gently, making sure his tone doesn’t come off as condescending. “It’s not cheating. We’re...all together,” he explains. “We’re polyamorous.”

Katy blinks at the word, not understanding. She wants to, but she’s out of her depth, and she feels a little like she’s drowning. Her fists have clenched without her realizing, one hand twisting the fabric of her work skirt. She’s defensive, on guard, and Shawn just wants to de-escalate the situation.

“I get that you must be confused. And I’ll answer any questions you have. We’ve been going out for awhile now, and… If we’re gonna get serious, get _exclusive_...this is a conversation we need to have. Cause I _really_ like you, Katy. I don’t want to lose you over this.” His fingers twitch on his knees, resisting the urge to reach out and grab her hands.

That settles Katy, a little. She really likes him too. And it’s not as though she’s perfect - she brought her own baggage and complications into this relationship. She can do her best to try to understand Shawn’s, to make this work. Shawn deserves that, at least. She wonders over the term _exclusive_ , and whether Shawn had been dating other people, on his travels. In all honesty, she hadn’t been seeing anyone else. Even before Shawn, she hadn’t dated anybody for awhile. It was hard, working all the time to provide for her and Maya, doing her best to be what bit of a mom she could. Not to mention most guys weren’t keen to date the waitress with a kid. And once she met Shawn, she didn’t see a need to date anyone else. He was a good guy; she cared about him. She wasn’t going to put herself out there to get hurt by him _and someone else._

“I really like you, too, Shawn.” Shawn smiles, and Katy can’t help but smile back. “So explain it to me.”

They spend the next hour talking, Shawn explaining polyamory along with the story of _‘Cory and Topanga and Shawn’_. He explains _“it’s like we’re all dating. It’s the same as anything else, except instead of two people, it’s three.”_ He tells her the story of how this all fell into place, back in college. How Cory and Topanga were _always_ going to get married, he’d known since he was five years old, since they were all little kids. But that along the way, he became a part of them. He tells her about a college welcome video, a tongue-tied Cory no good in front of the camera, and Shawn stepping in to replace him. How this cast him as Topanga’s boyfriend, and the role stuck. The director had told them to kiss, Cory got all worked up about it, and Shawn’s instinct to calm him down was to kiss him too. Somehow it all clicked into place from there.

 _It wasn’t always easy,_ he assured her. It took them a long time to figure this arrangement out, to accept their unconventional happiness. He told her about living with them, when they all moved to the city, their own version of the honeymoon phase. _Until Riley came along, and I got spooked,_ he admitted, shame coating his voice. He ran off, started his travel job. But he couldn’t stay gone forever, and when he came back, they had the same open arms they always did. They were angry, but they worked it out, like any other relationship.

“Those two were always going to be _Cory and Topanga,_ ” he said, emphasizing their names. “But we were always going to be _Cory and Topanga and Shawn_ , too. I fit a little different, but I fit.” He shrugged, figuring that was the simplest way to put it. It wasn’t less or secondary to their marriage, it was just _different_.

If Katy were honest - and honesty was critical to all of this, Shawn had said - she wasn’t sure she entirely understood. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t known before, in all the years of knowing the Matthews. Looking back, though, it all made sense - the too large bed, the pictures of the three of them all over the apartment, the way ‘Uncle Shawn’ was a part of every family vacation. Thinking about it, she reasoned that just because it wasn’t a lifestyle she thought would work for her, didn’t make it _bad_ or _wrong_. She’d always seen how happy Shawn was around the two of them, and she would never want to take away from that.

Shawn breaks her out of her thoughts by speaking up again, anxious to fill the silence. “Look, I’ve known them my whole life. But I’ll still have them, whether I’m dating them or not.” He leans in closer to her, making sure she’s meeting his eyes. “You’re really important to me, Katy, and I don’t want to lose you. Especially not over this.” He pauses again, taking a deep breath, looking up for a moment before looking her right in the eyes again. “I love Maya, Katy. And I love you.”

It’s the first time he’s said it, and it takes her breath away. She knows just how big that is for him. It’s big for her too. She hasn’t said it to anybody, save for Maya and her mother, since Kermit left. She hasn’t said it to Shawn yet.

“I love you, Katy. And love means getting to be selfish sometimes.” Katy tilts her head, not sure what he means by that. “So if you’re not okay with this, I can give them up. But I don’t want to give you up, Katy.”

Katy doesn’t know how to react to that. She can barely fathom it. She’s used to being the one left, just like Shawn, just like Maya. Yet here Shawn is, sitting across from her saying he’ll give up something that makes him happy, give up two people he cares about, so that he doesn’t have to lose _her_. He’s choosing _her_ first, and that’s more than she’d dared to dream of. If Shawn cares that much, is willing to sacrifice so much for her, she can bend for him. She can let him have it all.

“Shawn, I’ll admit, I’m still not sure I understand it all. I don’t know how to feel about everything yet. I don’t think _I_ could ever do it.” She pauses for a moment, remembering his line about selfishness and deciding to turn it back on him. “But you’re right,” she says, full of conviction, “love _does_ mean getting to be selfish sometimes.”

Shawn looks a little crestfallen at that, though he tries to hide it with a tight-lipped smile. He doesn’t want her to think that he’s not sure about this decision, or that he’ll regret it. He wants her, and she can’t doubt that.

“Love does mean getting to be selfish sometimes,” she continues. “And it’s _your turn_ to be selfish, Shawn.” It’s his turn to be confused, his eyebrows raising slightly in a ‘please elaborate’ expression. “Like I said, I don’t get it all. But it seems like you have _three people_ who love you.” She emphasises the number, and Shawn counts Cory, Topanga, and... _Katy_. “And Shawn, love is hard to come by. You should hold onto it from whoever you can get it. If that means it’s _me_ ,” she says it quieter, not like she’s unsure, just scared to admit it, “ _and_ Cory and Topanga… We can figure out how to make that work.”

Shawn doesn’t know how to respond to a confession like that, to being told he can have more happiness than he’d hoped for. He defaults to trying to play it cool, putting on a cocky smile and running his hand over his hair like he’s back in high school. “Now Katy,” he says, levity in his voice, “if I’m not mistaken, did you just say you love me?”

She blushes, rolling her eyes at his performance, but nods. “I do, Shawn. I love you.” He softens at that, his smile genuine and beaming. She closes the distance between them then, pulling him into a kiss, and he deeps it, hands at her sides pulling her flush against him. She’s kissing down his neck, his hands working up her shirt when she pulls back, putting a hand against his chest to stop him.

He looks at her, expectant, amused at the serious look on her face with her disheveled outfit. “Once we get this figured out, we’re going to have to figure out how to explain it all to Maya.” He swallows but nods, looking down to avoid the intensity of her stare. He finds her cleavage in her half-undone shirt and loses his focus for a moment. She pokes him in the chest, letting out a joking huff. “Because you do not get to hurt her. You do not get to hurt her by keeping secrets.”

He puts his hand up in joking surrender, smiling softly back up at Katy. “I would never.” She smiles, acquiesced, and reaches for the hem of his shirt. Before she can pull it over his head, he speaks up again. “Besides, I think it’s about time Riley knew the truth too.”

She falters with the shirt, and he reaches one hand and pulls it up and off, tossing it behind the couch. “ _Riley_ doesn’t know?” She says it like it’s scandalizing, but laughs as soon as she does, feeling less bad about having never realized herself.

“She is kind of an oblivious kid,” Shawn shrugs, hoping Katy will leave it at that, for now.

“Well, you have a point there,” she agrees, nodding her head to the side in dismissive agreement. That’s a conversation for another time. Right now, Shawn is shirtless, and she’s on his lap, and he just told her he loves her. There are better things to do with their time than talk.

**Author's Note:**

> find me @ hufflepuffjohnjaqobis on tumblr if you want to chat about these four falling into an unconventional domesticity, or to prompt me


End file.
